Today is my third day without cigarettes. It feels awful. I quit twice in the past. The longest I stayed smoke-free was for about a year. I also did not drink anything (anything worth drinking that is ) during that miserable year and yes stimulant-wise this period of self-induced ascetism was most abysmal.
Why did I not drink? For me alcohol in any form is the most powerful smoking trigger I can think of. No drink, no smoke. On the other hand I enjoy drinking. There is no particular reason I quit this time. So why did I quit this time? My father does it perpetually. Now in his 60s, he quits intermittently, every second month or so he goes off the hook, then stays tobacco-free for a month or two and then lights up again.
A few observations.
Smoking cessation guides of which there is a legion out on the Internet all claim that physical withdrawal symptoms disappear after 72 hours. In reality, those symptoms got much worse. Actually the first 24 hours were tolerable, the next 24 barely tolerable and the craving for a cigarette after 72 hours became almost unbearable.
I’ve got vast quantities of wine, whiskey, brandy stashed in the house and cigarette packs lay around all over.
Lack of concentration - it is next to impossible to concentrate on anything,. Even writing this sentence requires an enormous effort. I can’t see how I can do any kind of work in the next few days. Screw that. Perhaps doing menial tasks like laying bricks or driving one of my Fiats around, pointlessly while listening to something upbeat and inspiring might be the only sort of thing I can do now. Talking of upbeat and inspiring - just got a fabulous CD with a recording of Le Triomphe de la République, the 1792 work by François-Joseph Gossec, with Swiss Radio Choir, good stuff, so beautifully French, so alien, so remote, so upbeat, so inspiring. On the CD cover there is a reproduction of a painting depicting some proud common man, un citoyen, someone who stood up in defense of the republic no doubt. The man is smoking a pipe.
Why did I not drink? For me alcohol in any form is the most powerful smoking trigger I can think of. No drink, no smoke. On the other hand I enjoy drinking. There is no particular reason I quit this time. So why did I quit this time? My father does it perpetually. Now in his 60s, he quits intermittently, every second month or so he goes off the hook, then stays tobacco-free for a month or two and then lights up again.
A few observations.
Smoking cessation guides of which there is a legion out on the Internet all claim that physical withdrawal symptoms disappear after 72 hours. In reality, those symptoms got much worse. Actually the first 24 hours were tolerable, the next 24 barely tolerable and the craving for a cigarette after 72 hours became almost unbearable.
I’ve got vast quantities of wine, whiskey, brandy stashed in the house and cigarette packs lay around all over.
Lack of concentration - it is next to impossible to concentrate on anything,. Even writing this sentence requires an enormous effort. I can’t see how I can do any kind of work in the next few days. Screw that. Perhaps doing menial tasks like laying bricks or driving one of my Fiats around, pointlessly while listening to something upbeat and inspiring might be the only sort of thing I can do now. Talking of upbeat and inspiring - just got a fabulous CD with a recording of Le Triomphe de la République, the 1792 work by François-Joseph Gossec, with Swiss Radio Choir, good stuff, so beautifully French, so alien, so remote, so upbeat, so inspiring. On the CD cover there is a reproduction of a painting depicting some proud common man, un citoyen, someone who stood up in defense of the republic no doubt. The man is smoking a pipe.
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